Aristocracy Quotes

Our whole system of banks is a violation of every honest principle of banks. There is no honest bank but a bank of deposit. A bank that issues paper at interest is a pickpocket or a robber. But the delusion will have its course. ... An aristocracy is growing out of them that will be as fatal as the feudal barons if unchecked in time.

Newport, Rhode Island, that breeding place-that stud farm, so to speak-of aristocracy; aristocracy of the American type.

Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class -- whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy.

Fred Astaire represented the aristocracy, I represented the proletariat.

Monarchy degenerates into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into savage violence and chaos.

Every age that has historical status is governed by aristocracies.

In an autocracy, one person has his way; in an aristocracy, a few people have their way; in a democracy, no one has his way.

The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.

When culture is created in boardrooms with a panel of six or seven strategists for the masses to follow, to me that is no different than an aristocracy. It's not created from the people in the middle of the streets, so to speak. It is created from a petri dish for the sake of making money, and it is undermining the longevity of the culture.

I hope we shall . . . crush in [its] birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations.

Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant. Of a teacher and a learner.

Christianity is completely and radically anti-democratic; it is committed to spiritual aristocracy.

It is a know fact that almost all revolutions have been the work, not of the common people, but of the aristocracy, and especially of the decayed part of the aristocracy.

Wars are popular. Contractors make profits; the aristocracy glean honour.

A superfluity of wealth, and a train of domestic slaves, naturally banish a sense of general liberty, and nourish the seeds of that kind of independence that usually terminates in aristocracy.

There is an aristocracy of the sensitive. They represent the true human tradition of permanent victory over cruelty and chaos.

The protection of the masses has in all times been the pretense of tyranny - the plea of monarchy, of aristocracy, of special privilege of every kind. The slave owners justified slavery as protecting the slaves.

A jackass has that kind of strength, and puts it to a useful purpose, and is valuable to the world because he is a jackass; but anobleman is not valuable because he is a jackass. It is a mixture that is always ineffectual, and should never have been attempted in the first place. And yet, once you start a mistake, the trouble is done and you never know what is going to come of it.

There is... an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendency.

The odious and disgusting aristocracy of wealth is built upon the ruins of all that is good in chivalry or republicanism; and luxury is the forerunner of a barbarism scarcely capable of cure.

A fully equipped duke costs as much to keep up as two Dreadnoughts, and dukes are just as great a terror - and they last longer.

And real nobility (that of the heart) is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.

All men agree that a just distribution must be according to merit in some sense; they do not all specify the same sort of merit, but democrats identify it with freemen, supporters of oligarchy with wealth (or noble birth), and supporters of aristocracy with excellence.

An aristocracy is the true support of a monarchy.

There is no greater evidence of superior intelligence than to be surprised at nothing.

Capitalism improves the quality of life for the working class not just because it leads to improved wages but also because it produces new, better, and cheaper goods.... Indeed, with capitalism, the emphasis shifted to producing goods as cheaply as possible for the masses--the working class--whereas artisans had previously produced their goods and wares mostly for the aristocracy. Under capitalism every business wants to cater to the masses, for that is where the money is.

The breath of an aristocrat is the death rattle of freedom.

It is true that the aristocracies seem to have abused their monopoly of legal knowledge and at all events their exclusive possession of the law was a formidable impediment to the success of those popular movements which began to be universal in the western world.

There is only one true aristocracy . . . and that is the aristocracy of passionate souls!

The best work in the world was always done by members of the aristocracy.

This is a new land - a land of pretension because it is new; because classes and systems have not had that time to grow here naturally. We have no aristocracy but of virtue and talent, which is the only true aristocracy, and is the old and true meaning of the term.

Tomorrow every Duchess in London will be waiting to kiss me.

Bohemia is a commune in which the Revolution is over and everyone is a member of the aristocracy

Aristocracy has three successive ages. First superiority s, then privileges and finally vanities. Having passed from the first, it degenerates in the second and dies in the third.

Now people want what the movie was about, which is violent comedy. And that's really what The Aristocrats is based on - what will a family do out of desperation.

In literature as in ethics, there is danger, as well as glory, in being subtle. Aristocracy isolates us.

Time extracts various values from a painter's work. When these values are exhausted the pictures are forgotten, and the more a picture has to give, the greater it is.

Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence.

Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.

I like aristocracy. I like the beauty of aristocracy. I like the hierarchical feeling.

Modern definitions of truth, such as those as pragmatism and instrumentalism, which are practical rather than contemplative, are inspired by industrialisation as opposed to aristocracy.

Aristocracy is always cruel.

There exists a false aristocracy based on family name, property, and inherited wealth. But there likewise exists a true aristocracy based on intelligence, talent and virtue.

Our aristocracy, unlike that of Europe, is open to all comers.

Aristocracy and exclusiveness tend to final overthrow, in language as in politics.

Anyone's blood can become blue for a lump sum down.

Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.

We stand a better chance with aristocracy, whether hereditary or elective, than with monarchy.

If a [democratic] society displays less brilliance than an aristocracy, there will also be less wretchedness; pleasures will be less outrageous and wellbeing will be shared by all; the sciences will be on a smaller scale but ignorance will be less common; opinions will be less vigorous and habits gentler; you will notice more vices and fewer crimes.

Where position is felt to be a birthright, generosity is possible (though not guaranteed); flexibility is not inhibited by a commitment to perpetual success.